The budget is now a crucial moment for this government. It has to demonstrate that there is a growth strategy, and show how decisions will be made to limit the downturn and point the economy to a better future. It is made more difficult by wanting to put up Corporation tax, making the UK a less attractive destination for inward investment and new jobs, and reducing company cashflows for new domestic investment by companies already here. Since the Chancellor spoke about reversing tax proposals various independent forecasters have been cutting their growth forecasts.
The government has placed itself at the mercy of OBR forecasts. The OBR needs to lift its current year forecast of the budget deficit which I said would be an understatement when they made it. It needs to update it for the extra spending the government has now committed as a response to the energy crisis. It needs to reflect for the following year the likely slowing of revenue growth as a result of economic downturn. The government needs to tell the nation that whatever it does borrowing willĀ be higher over the next year or so. The choice is whether to offer some offset to the hit to real incomesĀ from higher interest rates and higher energy costs in order to limit the downturn, or whether to end up borrowing even moreĀ because the downturn is deeper and longer. It seems likelyĀ the OBR will follow the Bank of England in predicting no growth and maybe a recession in 2023. The crucial 2025/6 year forecast which affects the budget judgement needs to be more realistic than last year’s deficit forecast. There will be a windfall on the debt interest programme given the way they state it. As inflation comes down so on their definition the interest programme falls sharply.
The government needs to review the list of projects to expand UK capacity listed in the Growth Plan 2022 released by the last Chancellor. Several important oil and gas field developments are missing at a time when we need to swell the domestic productionĀ of fuels. This would boost revenues at home and cut carbon dioxide from transporting and liquifying imports. The road schemes need to be ones which increase capacity on main roads to allow people going to work inĀ vehicles freedom from so many traffic jams. They can then book an additional appointment in the day. They should add small modular nuclear reactors to the list where pump priming state investment could lead to a major new manufacturing activity to be privately financed with opportunity for exports.
The government needs reviews of regulations, licencing and subsidy regimes where they affect our ability to grow more of our own food, deliver more of our own energy and produce more of our own industrial products. Your ideas would b e of interest as to what a good Growth strategy should look like.
October 20, 2022
Good morning.
Whatever one may think of the (yet another) new Chancellor, I have to agree with him when he asked for Cabinet member colleagues to look for cuts in spending. Perhaps Sir John you can point him to my, and many others favourite hate tax, Overseas Aid. That is some Ā£11 – 14bn saved right there. No one in the UK need be affected and it would go well with the electorate.
Somehow though, I think this will be swerved.
October 20, 2022
Mark,
Agree there are savings to be made there. I assume the weaponry supplied to Ukraine is counted in our aid spending?
That said, the current shambles of a Tory Party may do better to play the long game. Adopt the Brown/Darling approch of the noughties to leave the public finances totally screwed, stall on all growth initiatives, make taxes eye-wateringly painful, etc. They will then lose the next election but leave Labour with a scorched earth economy.
Populus will judge Labout did no good in power & Tories get relected in 2029(ish).
October 20, 2022
Value of UK aid to Ukraine estimated at $4bn. Over a quarter of the foreign aid budget accounted for.
October 20, 2022
OK, Pete, so that can be cut out right away. Aid to ‘developing’ nations that are actually developing their space programmes and/or nuclear weapons should be next.
October 20, 2022
Classic article this.
Yes, of course I agree that the problem lies with the OBR rather than the bonkers economic policies which we cannot afford and which the bond markets referred to as Britain paying a ‘moron premium.’
The OBR is of course meant to be an independent body, and seeking to influence it would be non-democratic And, yes, of course its predictions may not be perfect. But I believe that ‘may things are hard to predict, especially the future.’ And I would prefer it verge on the side of caution than making optimistic growth prediction to bankroll unaffordable tax cuts.
October 21, 2022
Oh, you need have no fears that the OBR will make any optimistic growth predictions! Its staff have been carefully vetted for their professional connections with the IMF and the Treasury, so you can be sure that high taxes, more immigration and all the other pseudo-tools of disastrous ‘prudence’ will be employed to beggar the nation. They have form.
It is the OBR’s absurd, nay insane demands for fiscal tightening that will worsen the recession.
The bond markets were responding to sudden LDI margin calls by the pension funds, exacerbated by the BoE deciding to sell gilts on precisely the wrong day of the year.
But of course you are just trying to make a leftwing/remainer political point, we realize.
October 20, 2022
So trade from the UK to the European Union is 16% lower than if it had not left, and vice-versa 20% lower.
How is this to help the Chancellor in addressing revenues?
October 20, 2022
What’s this “Will of the People” that you made such a fuss over wanting right now?
October 20, 2022
The ‘Will of the People’ at any cost, the will of the people must always be supreme
October 20, 2022
The will of the people as long as it’s lefty and labour? ??
October 20, 2022
I thought you guys said trade with the EU would stop. So what if it is less? Well buy more goods made here.
October 20, 2022
You’ve allowed for the Covid effect I presume NHL?
October 20, 2022
Some markets are up a lot though arenāt they? UK exports to Singapore up over 33% 12 months to August 2022, Indonesia up 32%, Thailand up 20%, GCC members up some over 40%.
October 21, 2022
NLH, PVL made a good point last night, percentages don’t tell the whole picture. How much money in Ā£s or ā¬ from the UK to the European Union is 16%, and vice-versa 20% lower. If there is a big difference in Ā£s to the UK’s advantage, doesn’t that help to balance the trade deficit?
October 21, 2022
It is irrelevant. Trade is trade, whether with the Continent or with the Rest of the World. We are not there to service the EU.
October 20, 2022
The question has to be why on earth didn’t KK budget include spending cuts? If they were so politically unacceptable then, why are they politically acceptable in spades now?
October 20, 2022
Exactly Mark B and much of it disappears in corruption.
October 20, 2022
Overseas aid could be better targeted and therefore more cost effective if it wasn’t just a splurge of money.
Sending in expertise to educate & build and sending in expertise to help with natural disasters instead of just handing over huge sums of money would be far better for all concerned.
Remember Haiti Earthquake and all the money sent in? That’s just one example.
I read years ago an article from one of Blair’s quango people who admitted much of the aid money is spent on consultancy fees. Which explains why nothing ever seems to get done with all the money pumped into places for decades.
Then there is the cost of bringing all those people here, and boy how the Cons. love to boast that we take in more than others in Europe. Again a Blair stooge writing years ago said it is cheaper to use funds to keep people as close to their own region as possible, rather than resettling here.
None of this is about helping people in danger though in my view, it’s about getting as many here as possible to turn the tide for good. I believe Braverman genuinely wanted to stop that and it was only a matter of time before they’d find something to make her job untenable.
October 21, 2022
To be fair to Cameron he did pay to keep people in the region. A lot but he didn’t bring them all here. Just a selected few.
October 20, 2022
@Mark B, I could agree with you but does Hunt mean that? The first thing he did was employ more people after seeing that existing structures didnāt measure up to his āGlobalistā views. While leaving the surplus entities that have failed the UK, therefore are not providing value for money to those that pay their wages – the taxpayer in place.
The position of the Taxpayer so far has been demonstrated by Hunt as having the deep pocket he can dive into at will, rather than a deep cull and demand for value for money that is needed to relieve taxpayer.
If he cant bring his own department into the value for money operation how can he demand that of others.
October 20, 2022
Overseas /Foreign Aid enslaves the poor, enriches the dictators and empowers MP ā¦scrap its budget line and instead target emergency aid as and when required
October 20, 2022
I believe that Hunt, Sunak and many others are fully in support of the ridiculous levels of UK foreign Aid, so that is not going to happen. Our host was quite right a week of so ago when he called for aid to all countries with Nuclear weapons to be withdrawn. There are several other criteria that I would also use to withdraw it from a wider group.
October 20, 2022
What should a good Growth strategy look like? It should look like the strategy that was proposed by Liz Truss and Mr Kwarteng in the mini budget.
October 20, 2022
11 billion would pay for the pensioners triple lock. Cancelling HS2 would save a projected figure of 78 billion and would wipe of the savings the Cons hope to safe. See how easy it is to make the savings without hurting the people.
October 20, 2022
Your party and govt record is appalling. The last three budgets Labour would be proud of, that is the sentiment of former Tory ministers! They are Not listening to you JR whatsoever.
Shapps slagging off Truss less than a week ago and we are expected to believe she appointed him Home Secretary! Shapps who let in 18 million people from covid hotspots! Who refused to stop them entering the country endangering us all. No chance of securing or policing our borders with this incompetent. Shapps who let them in despite no test or trace then in govt when Ā£37 billion wasted on test and trace! I would rather have tax cuts. He is unfit for office let alone HS.
October 20, 2022
Hope
He will not stop the rubber boats, remember he was transport Secretary, so the help for them will continue probably with a timetable and a franchise for the RNLI this time around !
I am getting rather more than fed up with totally incompetent people being put in charge of anything.
October 20, 2022
Exactly. What experience in the things they have been put on charge with have they got? The blind leading the blind.
October 20, 2022
Hope
He will not stop the rubber boats, remember he was transport Secretary, so the help for them will continue probably with a timetable and a franchise for the RNLI this time around !
I am getting rather more than fed up with totally incompetent people being put in charge of anything.
I guess a certain Mr Sunak is perhaps, just perhaps waiting quietly in the wings, with his supporters doing the dirty work, and is getting ready to be shoehorned in when Truss is ousted or resigns.
The argument being he came Runner up in the poll, so no need to hold another one.
October 20, 2022
Blimey, Excelled myself with this leadership and Sunak Forecast !
This is now absolutely the last chance for the Conservatives, fail again and they will be wiped out, and will deserve to be.
October 20, 2022
The detestable Andrew Mitchell has been gobbing off about keeping overseas aid.
October 20, 2022
Once when he was questioned about aid to India his response was along the lines of “If we don’t give aid to India then girls will not be educated”, of course the interviewer DIDN’T respond with “In other words you are financing India’s nuclear weapons program”… š
October 20, 2022
He’s a one trick pony
October 20, 2022
How about the Tory’s mass immigration tax at Ā£250000, per legit migrant and Ā£4 billion annual illegal bill. Thats why Selverman had to go. She was going to do something conservative! Can you please advise your colleagues that mass immigration may notionally raise the GDP it doesn’t per capita. Yours and Labours energy strategy is directly responsible for the energy crisis, blowing up coal power stations. National Security, importing power from our “friends” in Europe. How’s that looking now? Taxes the highest in 70 years…. for what? A 7 million waiting list in the English (world) NHS. Hunt was stopping health tourism…. and then he wasn’t Our culture and heritage being trashed, woke/ pc bs everywhere, frightened of your own shadows. Your Party are being out for a generation. Fiscal competence, my ass. Good riddance Tory’s, totally useless
October 21, 2022
Exactly!
October 20, 2022
Much sense in this, no point in exporting our high energy industries, jobs and increasing their CO2. Not of course that CO2 is remotely causing any climate emergency. It is actually a net positive.
A growth strategy is very simple. Abandon net zero, halve the size of the largely parasitic state, go for cheap on demand energy, halve and simplify taxes, stop rigging markets (energy, transport, health care, housing, education, bankingā¦), have quality immigration only, stop vaccinating people with dangerous covid vaccines, have police that actually deter real crimes and deter eco road blockers & terrorists, cancel all the soft loans for worthless degrees (at least 75% of them), relax planning, leave people to spend and invest their own money – they do it far better than governments do, cancel HS2, stop MPs and governments acting mainly for vested interests against the public interests as they so clearly do.
October 20, 2022
well said lifelogic
October 20, 2022
As usual I agree entirely with your input. Sadly, I suspect little of
your sensible approach being implemented.
October 20, 2022
To Lifelogic
The WEF wish to utterly destroy any possibility of recovery of prosperity to the people of Britain through a process of dissipation of resources. The Climate Change religion, and Environmental Governance driven by the āgreat resetā prevents the implementation of every one of your suggestions.
October 20, 2022
I think the crucial moment has already arrived. Globalists now have their man in place effectively calling the shots.
Growth does not really come into it. Bringing the country back into submission is their plan.
October 20, 2022
Seems so – Hunt, Shapps, Sunak lover of green crap & a modern history graduate C Skidmore… no thanks.
October 20, 2022
We’re finished.
The remainiacs are incharge and losing Braverman the only real tory is the end.
She really did want to stop the channel invasion so she had to go.
General election please.
October 20, 2022
Kowtowing to their leaders & masters in the EU & UN
October 20, 2022
Peter
I think you are correct and it had to happen, there are non so blind as those that will not see.
Parliament have sleep walked into the current situation. Does not bode well for the people of this country. Just a few will prosper.
October 20, 2022
Agree. The recent reversals will benefit people who are already very rich and leave the majority worse off. The usual socialist/Marxist disease.
October 20, 2022
Very sadly, it does look like that. Second chair in cabinet taken by another remainer, who will be next? What is JRM and others doing? sitting on their hands? At least this government will be gone sonn before they can do much damage.
There is only one solution, Reform.
October 20, 2022
Let’s hope that Braverman joins them.
I didn’t think it would be long before they ousted her, a ray of hope in a very dark place and time.
Still such as the Guardian are pleased so it can’t be all bad can it.
October 20, 2022
Braverman ousted herself. If she doesn’t know the difference between using work e-mail and personal e-mail, she’s not up to holding any decision-making position of any sort.
October 20, 2022
Peter, do you think going forward that every Ministerial MP that sends out any work e-mail on their private e-mail should immediately resign, gross misconduct, instant dismissal.
October 20, 2022
If it involves sending a document which has a government security classification (which is what Braverman did), yes, absolutely.
If I did the equivalent of that in my job, I’d almost certainly get sacked.
October 20, 2022
I see, i looked up what she did after your comment: Ā«Ā Earlier today, I sent an official document from my personal email to a trusted parliamentary colleague as part of policy engagement, and with the aim of garnering support for government policy on migration. This constitutes a technical infringement of the rules. As you know, the document was a draft Written Ministerial Statement about migration, due for publication imminently. Much of it had already been briefed to MPs. Nevertheless it is right for me to go.
As soon as I realised my mistake, I rapidly reported this on official channels, and informed the Cabinet Secretary. As Home Secretary I hold myself to the highest standards and my resignation is the right thing to do. The business of government relies upon people accepting responsibility for their mistakes. Pretending we haven’t made mistakes, carrying on as if everyone can’t see that we have made them, and hoping that things will magically come right is not serious polities. I have made a mistake; I accept responsibility: I resign.Ā«Ā source BBC
October 20, 2022
I hope Suella Braverman becomes the doctrinal future of the Conservative Party even if she never becomes Leader in the way Barry Goldwater pointed the way to the future of the American Republican Party and Keith Joseph became the forerunner of Margaret Thatcher. Suella Braverman may be too direct and perhaps is not politically adept enough to become Leader but she has the intellect, imagination and directness to map out to a genuine Conservative future (she would be wasted in the Reform Party). So I hope she devotes her huge intellectual talents to developing, advocating and creating a real Conservative future. I hope she can lead the way in turning her insights and views that are now on the outermost fringe of the Conservative parliamentary party into mainstream Conservativism and I think she may have the ability to do that over time.
October 20, 2022
Geoffrey Berg
I would like to think your right but to do that she will need to be in Parliament.
The way things are going we would be lucky to get into double figures if an election was called very soon.
October 20, 2022
The solution if for the sensible wing of the Conservative Party to take it over and ditch the many green crap pushing, anti-growth, internationalist, open door immigration lefties and self-interested career politicians. Alas it seems the complete reverse is happening.
October 20, 2022
Yes Peter , enter stage right the Reform Party son of the very successful Brexit Party. Their ideas are good, there is no logical reason that their implimentation would be any worse than the present hijacking rabble, but every chance that it could be a million miles better. Remembering what was achieved in our last EU election, with the financial support that has gone to waste on the tory party, and driven by the belief that the majority of the electorate is essentially conservative in its values. They believe in the monarchy , they believe in equality of opportunity, they believe in support of the truely dissadvantaged, they believe in law and order and a police force that responds to the opposite, they have no time for wokery while knowing what sex they are, they believe in a funtioning NHS but not a version that is burdoned with 43% of overpriced irrelevant administration. If they get the marketing right and their message across there is a whole army of disenfranchised votes waiting for an honest home.
October 20, 2022
Agreed. The UK cannot be seen to do better than the EU, under any circumstances! Not only is the CONS party on a course for political suicide, they want to take the country down with them!
October 20, 2022
This is our Draghi moment.
Brought to us by the idiotic, limp-wrested supposed Conservative party.
Cameron with his āTurnip Talibanā debacle lost massive local, experienced, sensible support and now they are planning to take the leadership vote from membership.
They wonāt have a blinking party!
October 20, 2022
BBC in Sunderland yesterday “As they were the first to vote for Brexit, let’s go and tell them where they were wrong and where it has got them”.
October 20, 2022
We see libertarian Charles Walker taking down fellow libertarian Liz Truss after having already taken down libertarian Boris. There are precious few libertarians in Parliament but toppling Brexit takes precedence over liberty.
October 20, 2022
And Walker isn’t standing next time so no loss to him personally. The opposition will be in power, implementing what he wants, so to hell with liberty.
October 21, 2022
Perhaps he’s been offered a gong rose.
October 21, 2022
I was wondering whether you were one of these ālibertariansā quite quick at wanting to restrict othersā freedoms of doing or saying things you do not agree with. Am I surprised? Not really. Your definition of liberty/freedom does not encompass anybody who does not share your opinion, does it?
The freedom/liberty of the Sovereign Individual?
October 20, 2022
Shirley, They are on a mission for cultural destruction. Mass immigration is their game. Braverman represented a ray of hope, hence why she was not elected as PM. She even dared to say UK needs to come out of ECHR if we want to control our borders. She was the only one of a three conservatives in govt, the rest lickspittles.
Shapps, FFS, who let in 18 million from covid hotspots, who was in govt after so much wasteful spending and socialist budgets. The danger to our national safety and way of life is now in peril with Shapps and Hunt in position.
The Chinese will be waved through our infrastructure without hesitation.
October 20, 2022
+1
October 20, 2022
@Peter +1 nicely said
October 20, 2022
Correct. They will not allow a competitive UK offshore of the crumbling EU. And certainly not one which is energy independent; has food security and is not controlled by the EU through the hostage Northern Ireland.
We voted for a Brexit-supporting Conservative Government. We’ve just witnessed a coup by Remainer, Globalist, WEF-supporting LibCONs.
October 20, 2022
+1
October 20, 2022
Peter, correct, well said.
No politicians prepared to die in the ditch defending this country, or its people, they are all in it for themselves.
October 20, 2022
+1
A Conservative MP reports trying to avert a general election ‘slaughter’.
Conservatism has been banned in the UK. Any attempt to introduce it results in sabotage. The only way to avert slaughter is to become like Labour and what’s the point in that ?
October 20, 2022
Correct – The leadership isn’t really the issue, its the split in the parliamentary party thats the issue
October 20, 2022
A chancellor fired for wanting to cut taxes and a home secretary encouraged to resign for wanting to cut immigration. At least we all now know where we (or should I say they) stand, in terms of policy.
October 20, 2022
+1
October 20, 2022
+1 We all noticed. Goodbye pretendy conservatives.
October 20, 2022
In the Telegraph today:-
āHAVING more cycle routes would be good for drivers, the president of the AA has said, as the Government considers cutting funds for walking and biking.ā
Well not when they half the road capacity of the roads for the sake of a few cyclists or one bus every 20 mins. Giving half the road space to perhaps 3% of the traffic is not a good plan unless you want to increase congestion, waste peopleās time and increase pollution. Cyclists cause a lot of congestions as do buses that stop every few hundred yards.
āEncouraging motorists to take fewer short journeys by car could reduce household fuel costs, and reduce congestion on the roads for other drivers, Edmund King said, adding: āEven though weāre a motoring organisation, that doesnāt mean you need to use your motor all the time.ā
Well Mr King perhaps it reduces ācarā fuel costs but clearly it increases human fuel (food) cost if they walk or cycle more. Human fuel is several times more expensive than car fuel (on a typical diet) so overall an increase in āfuelā costs. Also less efficient meat can use 20+ times the energy in it to produce it. Then only about 20% of it is converted to motion by the humans. So overall 99% of the meat production energy is wasted.
October 20, 2022
Edmund King OBE, President of The Automobile Association, read politics (Newcastle) and has even been a Visiting Professor of Transport there it seems.
One would have thought that a Professor of Transport might have been expected to have some basic understanding of energy, transport energy efficiently, transport engineering and transport economics. Perhaps also an understanding what actually fuelled walking and cycling. But then even the better & Russell Group universities are so dumbed down nowadays. A politics graduate can perhaps not be expected to understand much about science, transport or transport engineering logic? Not is seem did the Telegraph staff who chose to print this without any correcting comments.
October 20, 2022
well the head of the FCA got the job simply for being mates with Cameron. thats how senior roles are dished out in this country.
October 20, 2022
Academia isnāt necessarily a sign nor measure of intelligence (Academia just follows the funding)
October 20, 2022
Edmund King should concentrate on providing a better service for their customers instead of leaving them stranded for five hours at a time. Their favourite is to tow you to a service station and leave you there.
October 21, 2022
I remember the old AA of 30-40 years back where they would go to great lengths to get your vehicle going again.
October 21, 2022
Yes they did LL; they used to be a fantastic service organisation.
October 20, 2022
I received an email from Hammersmith & Fulham Council a couple of weeks back, with headline of increased CO2 and pollution in their area…
Hmm… what do you expected if you deliberately create excessive stop/start traffic, not to mention 30% of the road allocated to cyclists…
October 20, 2022
Implemented upon instruction from the EU
Even poor councils are being forced into building them ….and nobody uses them
October 20, 2022
Hunt will do what he is told by those who appointed him.British democracy, Tory MPs and Truss are now an irrelevance
October 20, 2022
DOM
Unless there is a political revolution across the country and a new party rises from the ashes it is going to be a dead men walking scenario. The seeds of what has been happening over the last few weeks were sown a long time ago. It was all about timing and Prime Ministers decisions and actions.
October 20, 2022
Personally, I would welcome a revolution. It could only be an improvement on what is being been done to our once great country! Democracy is dead in the UK. We need to restore it, whatever the cost, else accept our new status as the CONS dictatorship! We cannot allow the deliberate damage to continue for another two years!
October 20, 2022
@turboterrier; Indeed, the seeds were sown several decades back, and unless the Chairman of 1922 committee gets a grip pretty damned quick (within the next 24 hours) the Tory party looks as if they will, if not already, be irrelevant for the next decade or two, just as the Labour party became from the late 1970s when they lost sight of the real needs of the electorate and failed to control the ideologues who were still fighting their ‘class war’ of the 1930s.
The Tory party now appears full of ‘yes-men’ (to put it politely) since the 2019 election, were in the Tory party are those willing to deliver some home truths to the party membership with regards current party policies? To miss-quote Neil Kinnock…
October 20, 2022
I do not doubt this is a EU globalist coup. I was suspicious when Johnson was ousted. Now I think it was orchestrated.
Despite LL warnings there is no difference between the two socialist parties except the Tories lie to say otherwise.
October 20, 2022
Anything to do with the passing of a faithful Queen, I wonder?
October 20, 2022
Too true ā Just look at how the Tories screwed the public over Brexit
October 20, 2022
+1
October 20, 2022
Too right.
October 20, 2022
The government and parliamentary conservative party are like a Monty python parrot dead. They are no more. Politicians and the will of the people are not running the country. We don’t even have a pretence of democracy. Or a political and ruling class able to do the basics.
Forget it John. Either resign your seat or join the reform, sdp, or ukip and get them to merge, or help form a new party.
I hate the political class and the ruling class of this country they are a disgrace, and far worse than many of the things that they virtue signal about.
October 20, 2022
The problem isn’t with the conservative party, whose members are by and large real conservatives. The problem is their MP candidate selection. Perhaps they thought by selecting conservatives pretending to be liberals they might garner more votes. They didn’t bank on those selected being real liberals pretending to be conservatives!
Best thing now is for a general election and drain the swamp of career politician, fake conservatives. Perhaps then during a parliament out of office the conservative party can identify people who really believe in the same values as them.
John is in the right place, it’s his colleagues who are the problem.
October 20, 2022
Just ask a MP candidate, would you agree to tax cuts
October 20, 2022
@Iain gill; Would that be the same sort of virtue signaling you suggest our host joins?!
A minority view ideology is still a minority view, whatever the party, away from the echo chambers (such as daily commentators to this site) most people are mot obsessed with either tax cuts, Brexit or even AGW, they simply want polices that work and will soon discard those they believe are not working.
October 20, 2022
Jerry, since when were common sense and populist policies ‘virtue signalling’?
October 20, 2022
@John Hatfield; Only trouble there is one mans “common sense and populist policies” is someone else’s undiluted bilge water!
October 20, 2022
Conservatives are meant to be fighters not quitters. I don’t want to see any Tory MP leave the Tory Party ’cause we got some problems at moment. Everyone needs to please stay on board. And wait for a new strong leader to come along. And take the Tory back to where it should be.
October 20, 2022
+1 it is abundantly clear by most commentators the majority of MPs in the Tory party are conservatives!
80 seat majority and an easy job to get Brexit done and swing the state back to centre right. Resoundingly failed with a 80 seat majority so there is absolutely no chance now. May, Hunt and others should have been ousted.
October 20, 2022
Hatred is corrosive; best avoided.
Reform as a new party doesn’t yet have a bad record. ‘Reform’ of some kind is needed.
Perhaps many will choose that option in the hope of something better emerging.
October 20, 2022
Ask a Tory MP, Tory member or Tory voter what does the party stands for ā If they donāt reply in the first instance with āāTo Lower Taxesāā ā¦theyāre not a Tory
October 20, 2022
Dump IR35. Not the changes, the entire thing. (In 2020, one third of freelancers stopped working inside the UK. Of those remaining IPSE’s figures show in 2021, 24% planned to work abroad, 11% to retire, and 12% to stop working. That’s a sector being decimated.) If you want to make sure contractors pay a wage without the hassle of assessment, say their service company must pay them at least mininum wage for hours worked for clients in that client’s routine area of business. Makes it too cheap to be worth avoiding for an IT contractor or PM, and gives an easy out for lower paid workers or things like plumbers or those hired for a specific task like accountants.
Dump S660. If a family wants to share income between its members by working together great: those members are not then on the dole and get a consistent work record.
Likewise, allowing the full transfer of tax allowances between members of a family assists those with children, low incomes, or disabilities, and reduces the need for state assistance (which in practice means taking a chunk of their earnings, removing a slice for bureacracy, and then giving part back as tax credits).
You want people in work? Remove the barriers to entry.
October 20, 2022
+1 and far more tax simplification is needed.
October 20, 2022
Indeed, why should a couple who earn Ā£60K between them (before tax and NI) have far more disposable income and full child benefits than a couple where one earns Ā£60K and the other chooses not to formally work but looks after the children, shops, cooks, cleans, DIYs…
October 20, 2022
They also earn better state pensions if both work.
October 20, 2022
There does seem to be a lot of barriers to work.
Even those who have the chance of a temporary/seasonal post turn it down and not willingly, but because the hassle of signing on and off leaves them often in dire straits.
I watched an interview with an economist a while back when shortage of drivers was being blamed for fuel and goods not getting to their destination. His point was firstly we don’t have a shortage of workers, as an example double the amount stayed from EU states than was forecast and we are talking millions (we never did have a shortage of workers) What has happened regards to lorry drivers is all to do with the tax, IR35 being the reason as RHA research shows for many quitting the haulage industry.
October 20, 2022
@AI; Both IR35 & S660 need to be strengthened, not abolished!
“You want people in work? Remove the barriers to entry.”
Income tax is not and never has been a barrier to work, the lack of local work, the lack of being able/allowed to WFH, the lack of available full and total flexible working, inaccessible childcare or in-work benefits are. If people are to (be expected to) work further from their family home then other issues exist, such as affordable transport or accommodation.
October 20, 2022
The problem IR35 causes is not about income tax. It is about overhead, administration and tax liability. The simple possibility of being investigated and the costs of trying to comply mean that people drop out of the market: the percentages I gave were directly from the freelancers’ and contractors’ associations.
October 21, 2022
@AI; Then subcontracting is not the solution, direct employment is, after all the job still needs to be done!
October 20, 2022
Income tax has been a barrier to work Jerry.
In my experience people declined overtime hours due to high rates of tax
and refused sometimes promotions.
They felt it not worthwhile.
In a wider sense the more mobile skills moved abroad.
October 21, 2022
@P2; Been there, got that T-shirt, but the problem was not income tax per se but the basic pay scales within the company.
As for people moving aboard, people move for other reasons too (life style, climate etc), and whilst income tax in many countries is lower than in the UK or the EU26 other taxes or fixed costs can be very high, as in the USA for example. I know working age people who have moved to Germany, France, Spain and the USA & Australia, non of them made the move for tax purposes though.
October 20, 2022
correct, but the political class have been hoodwinked by the big outsourcers who want all the work freelancers do, even though they are not able to properly resource it, or deliver anything near acceptable quality.
October 20, 2022
Well said, Al.
The odious IR35 guidelines are part of a long series of efforts by the far left cadre within the Whitehall establishment to elimate independent workers and small contracting firms, which they view to be potential strike-breakers.
Such have been going on for many years; the Finance No. 2 Bill of 1975 provoked the greatest ābrain-drainā in our history by announcing such businesses would be ādeemed to be closedā – so all those who were good enough just upped and went overseas, much to the detriment of our economy.
October 20, 2022
@boffin; IR32 has never stopped true self-employment. In fact if IR35 was abolished I suspect that would eliminate many such independent workers and small contracting firms, why would larger companies bother to use such people when they can re-contract their existing staff more cheaply? As for strike breaking, again far more likelihood of a truly self-employed contractor remaining at their post during a strike than someone who is only nominally self-employed with very close and ongoing ties to the company and thus perhaps personal long standing friendships those on strike.
October 20, 2022
“@boffin; IR32 has never stopped true self-employment.” – jerry
Incorrect. Agency nurses who may work for any healthcare trust or private client for short term only and select their own clients, lost 30% earnings (IHPA) causing a loss of nurses and flexibility in healthcare. Supply teachers and tutors experienced similar.
The effect on truck drivers in the UK, who own their rigs and contract for multiple companies, was to force 100,000 drivers off the road (RHA figures) and the government to issue 5,000 visas for overseas drivers to do the same work, which they could do because they were outside IR35.
There are cases where HMRC have gone after workers like plumbers fixing sinks because they are working on site and therefore must be the company’s employees. Construction news reports the number of self-employed tradesmen like electricians and builders has dropped to an 18-year low.
IT contractors, as previosuly said, retired or took work offshore.
Is it worth harming the teaching, healthcare, transport, construction, plumbing, electrical, and IT sectors in case something isn’t ‘proper’ self-employment? If removing it gets people back into work and off government support, I am all for scrapping it.
October 21, 2022
Great post Al
Very well explained
IR35 and the way HMRC are interpreting it has been a disaster for businesses and self employed contractor in the fields you have given us and in other sectors.
October 21, 2022
@AI; “Is it worth harming the teaching, healthcare, transport, construction, plumbing, electrical, and IT sectors in case something isnāt āproperā self-employment?”
Your rational is seriously woke, unless you are advocating the abolition of income tax!
IR35 does not cause such jobs to vanish, people or companies chose to avoid paying (future due) taxes. It is the weakness of the IR35 rules that cause the problems you cite, not IR35’s day-facto existence.
As for self-employed building industry contractors, why would the HMRC go after individuals or companies if correctly registered, isn’t that what CIS is about?
October 21, 2022
“It is the weakness of the IR35 rules that cause the problems you cite, not IR35ās day-facto existence.” – jerry
I have cited figures from five different groups which state the opposite of your claim. Please provide figures to support yours.
And my _not_ wanting to pay to support people is hardly a ‘woke’ view, given the amount of free money certain on the left would like the government to spin from thin air and hand out.
October 21, 2022
Another excellent post Al
Very well said.
October 20, 2022
Growth relies upon business confidence (per the 1944 Beveridge Report) and this Government has eroded that substantially. Much of what this Government is doing is plainly wrong. Blair-like, it constantly talks of growth in the expectation we will fail to notice it is producing the opposite.
The budget you would have given us is needed. Otherwise, urgency and effectiveness (neither shown so far) in relation to measures to boost home energy production and provide for import substitution not least for food would help.
October 20, 2022
“Eroded” business confidence, almost completely destroyed it surely with the Tories fighting like cats in a sack and the almost certainty of Labour/SNP in two years or sooner.
October 20, 2022
Q. How often do you, and your fellow Conservative MPs, sit down in front of your association members to chat about policy? My feeling is that not enough do – and that’s why your party now faces oblivion.
Reply I run a daily conversation for them and anyone else on this website!
October 20, 2022
Trouble is..
People very often donāt mean what they say or indeed say what they mean.
And very, very often they go back on what they say!
To such an extent that I donāt believe much any more.
If I understand the situation correctly and it took manhandling to defeat that labour proposition re fracking.
Then I am GLAD. About bloody time too!
So sick of idiotic liberal pussyfooting.
October 20, 2022
I’m afraid we are back to the old conumdrum Sir John.
I’m quite willing to vote for you but your views are not shared by the people actually running the Conservative Party as far as I can tell. So what do I do at the next election (which may now be imminent)?
The good news is that I won’t vote Lib Dem or Labour – but where is my political home now?
I watched you on GB News last night very much being the voice of calm and reason but I also watched other members of your party in complete despair. I do feel desperately sorry for all those loyal and hard working Conservative MPs who have frankly been betrayed and badly let down by a bunch of political nonentities and lightweights. I’m sure they are many Labour voters who look at the shadow front bench and feel equally homeless.
October 20, 2022
Reply to John Redwood reply:
You may well run a daily conversation and possibly a few others may realise who it is they work for, but it’s evident this isn’t making its way to those with their hands on the tiller steering us towards the rocks.
I’m far from alone in thinking we may possibly being sold out as a nation, as a people, to the idea of a global corporate management scheme.
I just can’t see why else this madness would be allowed to continue.
October 20, 2022
What percentage of the commentors on here are actually resident in Wokingham constituency though?
October 20, 2022
@ Peter Parsons – Sir John’s reach goes far beyond the confines of Wokingham and I for one am glad.
October 20, 2022
And full credit to you for that, Sir John.
October 20, 2022
Reply to Sir John.
And it is greatly appreciated, even if we all “sound off” quite regularly….including those like me who are not (and never have been) one of your constituents.
The problem is that you are pretty much a one-off. What the people think is irrelevant to the immature, inexperienced careerist-politicians we now have. Their main priority is climbing the greasy pole, and that requires listening to and doing the bidding of the Globalists, not the people.
October 20, 2022
+1 Donna. The majority of MP’s are either stupid, anti-UK, or became MP’s for entirely the wrong reasons. That applies to ALL the main parties. MP’s like Sit John are becoming very rare commodities indeed. Pretty much on the danger list!
October 20, 2022
Reply to Reply
I do not read SW as a personal comment as to how you sound out or communicate with your electorate. I interpret it as a general observation based ln the behaviour of the parliamentary conservative party since the arrival of Liz Truss as PM.
The question you must ask yourself is, can I and my like minded ERG colleagues rescue the parliamentary party from the crevasse into which they have fallen unroped or should we start afresh and leave them to inevitable oblivion.
October 20, 2022
You’ve put the question perfectly, Agricola. I would like to see it answered by our good host asap. It’s looking like five minutes to midnight for the Conservatives.
October 20, 2022
The govt have allowed a leftist narrative, trumpeted by the BBC, to take hold – namely that the mini-budget “crashed the economy”. It did not. It was very badly and foolishly handled but Hunt should make clear the main reason for the difficulties we – and other countries are in – is the costs and other effects of the Covid lock-downs. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a proximate but not underlying cause of the energy crisis.
The reverse of the Corp tax plan is foolish and will slow growth, but Hunt can make the point that it’s no good willing lower taxes without lower spending (as Truss-Kwarteng did, foolishly). So he should give a direction of travel to control of spending and subsequent lower taxes. A bold look at regulatory reform could still in theory be on the agenda for the govt and would also send a positive signal.
October 20, 2022
A koo.
A coop.
A COUP.
Thanks to the treacherous left wing tories.
And the right wing ones have been warned and warned and warned.
And who will benefitā¦allegedly IS benefitting?
Why, REFORM of course!!
October 20, 2022
Significant that nowhere at all in your article do you mention spending cuts of any type. That’s because there aren’t going to be any isn’t it ?
October 20, 2022
As I wrote yesterday I would like to see the Workplace Pension Scheme suspended in the upcoming budget.
This will give employees 4% more take home pay.
This will save employers 3% of their wage bill.
This will save government (spending cuts) 1% tax rebate of all contributions.
8% back into the economy at a time when pension funds are underperforming.
Suspend for 18 months.
October 20, 2022
Don’t worry about the budget – the Party needs to sort itself out whilst it ‘rests’ in opposition and that means A LOAD of Conservative trouble makers and irresponsible ‘pillocks’ losing their seats and not being allowed back . 10 years of Labour (failings) will bring in a new cohort of Conservative MPs with the right sort of focus to ensure decency and stability in PARLIAMENT rather than the riotous rabble (with a few exceptions very few actually!) that we have at present. Everyone is tainted whether they deserve it or not so the new Conservative Leader and PM must be a ‘substantially good and honest broker’ and one WILL EMERGE one day. In the meantime Sir John remain as our MP and continue to look after your Constituents
best interests as you have always done for which we thank you.
October 20, 2022
One thing we can forget now, with the collapse and capitulation of the Truss agenda, is clean Brexit. If as seems likely Labour win the election Brexit will be reversed in all but name. There is no chance Hunt will allow any kind of serious trade confrontation with the EU over NI or the migrants so letās stop wasting time posturing with the NI bill, talk of leaving the ECHR etc. trade frictions with the EU are constraining growth even if itās not popular in the Conservative party to point it out. Likewise itās clear that there is no appetite for any serious divergence from EU standards nor really for proper free trade with the non-EU. Itās not just the left itās Conservative MPs who have no stomach for it.
This being the case it would make sense to get ahead of the curve and do a comprehensive re-negotiation with the EU, most likely ending in a Norway type set-up. (Switzerland would be better but probably isnāt available). As part of it the EU would need to agree sensible solutions to NI and the migrant problems. This would obviously be a complete defeat for the ERG type vision of Brexit, but in the medium term would be a big boost to confidence and to growth.
It could have worked and perhaps itās been bad luck with covid and Ukraine etc. but selecting May, Johnson and now Truss as PM means one way and another the Conservative Party has now blown Brexit according to the most articulate version of the Leave argument in the referendum. Time to recognise the game is up.
October 20, 2022
“The budget is now a crucial moment for this government.”
The govt has got to last until the end of the month first!…
As for the OBR, once again our host is trying to lay down a smoke-screen to hide dysfunction within the govt and PM he supports. The OBR report reflects how good or bad govt fiscal decision making is, hence why Osborn set it up – does anyone seriously believe the then Chancellor would have set up such a body if it could have forced him to into policies he did not want?! The OBR can only cause grief for the govt when the latter allows political ideology becomes more important than good fiscal housekeeping.
October 20, 2022
Did you read Sir John’s recent articles about how inaccurate the OBRs forecasts had been Jerry?
October 21, 2022
@P2; Yes Peter, I do read our hosts OPINIONS, but unlike you I do not hang on his every word, and I most certainly do not take only his words as fact. Many unknown-unknowns & known-unknowns can affect an OBR forecast, after the OBR has published it, that is why its called a “forecast” -duh!
Before the OBR existed, how many times did previous Chancellors have to stand at the Dispatch Box on budget day and open their speech with apologies, that his own forecast the previous year turned out to be wrong….
October 21, 2022
But they weren’t Sir John’s “OPINIONS” Jerry
Sir John compared the predictions of the OBR with what actually happened.
They have a very poor recent record.
Yet you and others say we should trust them and create future tax and spend policy based on thir forecasts.
October 20, 2022
I think the most important thing at the moment is that the senior, and past members with real governmental experience within your Party, need to get together for an important conversation about its future.
At the moment you are a Party that seems to be totally split on any way forward, with members who appear to be deliberately undermining any sort of policy that is put forward.
It’s all very well being a broad church of idea’s as the saying goes, but at the moment you look like a clueless rabble of a party, with little control over anything, which includes personal responsibility and behaviour.
Fully aware Covid and the War in Ukraine has had a huge impact, but most of the original manifesto pledges now seem to have been lost or forgotten, as have the Party’s traditional core beliefs.
Instead we now have an un-costed net zero fantasy policy, the highest tax take for 70 years, an immigration system which is completely out of control, a massive growing national debt, and the wish to micro manage the individual lives of the Nation.
Unfortunately for us, all the opposition Party’s are offering the same !
I know the phrase “Get back to Basics” has been used before, but:
For goodness sake will someone get a grip !!!!!
October 20, 2022
Good morning Sir John
I really do like your Diary, more so that you are on the same wavelength as me and what I know of the greater majority of the UK electorate.
While you write a lot of sense(well more than just sense, well reasoned logic) when it comes to the economy etc. However, your party is Conservative in name only now. With the promotion of Hunt the left wing āGlobalistā to PM and the removal of any remnants of those that feel they are MPās to support the UK and represent their constituents. The party has lurched even further into the image of Boris Johnson’s Socialism and fully accepts orders form outside influences that could never stand up to the scrutiny of the electorate.
The add into that the āMachiavellianā extremes in the Party, what ever you say has lost all meaning, the agenda is different.
Its not a change of PM that is needed, or a GE but a revolution to bring in Democracy
October 20, 2022
Sir John, havenāt you realised whatās happened yet? Your party has been sacrificed by the EU rejoiners and globalists. They have carried out a coup to ensure a labour victory in the next general election. This will facilitate the UK implementing ever greater ties with the EU and will result in us re-joining on much worse terms.
You can either go down with the ship or rally enough like-minded colleagues to leave the Conservatives and join a new right-of-center party. Burying your head in the sand and trying to fix whatās broken isnāt an option that will work.
I thank you for your dedicated service to our beloved country. If only we had more politicians of your calibre.
October 20, 2022
I agree entirely, Christine. Unfortunately, Sir John still thinks he can bring some sense to the party. He will fail and break his own heart trying. Meanwhile, his continued presence in this corrupt indicates support!
October 20, 2022
Here is a report that has been buried by the press and never carried out by the government.
It is quite startling. ( Presented like a book..you have to flip the pages).
https://fairfueluk.com/CEBR-2030-BAN/
It concludesā¦
āWhilst there may remain strategic reasons for implementing the ban such as demonstrating the UKās commitment to achieving Net Zeroā by 2050, this regulatory policy should be seen primarily as one the reduces the welfare of U.K. citizens.ā
October 20, 2022
I never did understand why Parliament allowed the Benn Bill to go through. That was treason of the highest order. It was clear that Parliament preferred to protect their treasonous and undemocratic colleagues than protect the country and it’s people from them! Democracy was on the wane since we joined the EEC/EU, but the rogue Parliament of 2017-2019 went for complete destruction of democracy in a VERY big way, and NOBODY in Parliament did anything about it! Please prove me wrong, Sir John, if you can!
October 21, 2022
Parliament illegitimately passed the Surrender Bill because they wanted to impede our exit from the EU. They did.
October 20, 2022
I thought Mr Kwarteng’s had all the makings of a good Growth strategy and it is a tragedy thet he and the PM were incapable of articulating it.
October 20, 2022
Yesterday the Home Secretary resigned over a breach of security rules, the Chief Whip and Deputy Chief Whip resigned (and then didn’t). The government made a vote a confidence one, then stood up at the dispatch box and said it wasn’t while it still was. Senior members of the government are also reported as physically manhandling individuals MPs to force them to vote against their consciences.
I’m currently travelling in Europe on business. The UK is seen as a joke and this government is the reason.
This government is a disgrace. For the sake of the country, just go. Now.
October 20, 2022
Nero fiddled while rome burned – the same
October 20, 2022
To your first sentence I am inclined to ask what government. The UK government has just suffered a coupe d’etat by a globalist remainer group of MPs from the left wing of an already left of centre party, led by one who failed in party leadership twice, is an avowed remainer, a believer in more immigration legal or not, husband of a Chinese wife with an in to the CCP.
Your party is dead in the water, no one in the real world can attach any credence to a word any of them utter. Liz Truss is now a political prisoner. It is a time for real conservatives to consider their political future.
October 20, 2022
For far too long, governments of all pursuasions have indulged sections of their support base and academics who plead loudest, to spend vast sums on projects that do nothing to boost the economy of the country.
The Ā£1.7bn tunnel under Stonehenge is a perfect example of money being wasted. We are all familiar with another : HS2 for which the already very doubtful business case has diosappeared completely.
No more projects of this type should be authorised until the public finances are brought under proper control and government spending across the piece is reduced to substantially below 50% of GDP.
October 20, 2022
Sir John, your party in government helped to get the country into this mess by following three policies recently:- locking down the economy for months, massive money-printing to pay people to do nothing during the lockdowns, and creating energy shortages by sanctioning one of the world’s biggest energy providers. Liz Truss is too darned right that ‘mistakes were made’, only she doesn’t say what the real ones were. Who is going to pay for them? Not the political class and their hangers-on, but it’s going to be Janet, John and the kids, as usual. They sure as heck aren’t going to vote for your party anymore, so you may as well join a new one, as others on this site have rightly suggested.
October 20, 2022
There was a time when MPs where āgracious in defeatā
Brexit, Boris, Mini Budget & Liz ā¦now-a-days, if MPs doesnāt like the result they lobby to get it changed, not even just sour grapes but campaigning to overturn a decision
Remember the EU template on voting; keep doing it till you have the result we want
October 20, 2022
A MsM comment
Entered under the excellent item from Sir John in relation to Ms Braverman
Office for Budget Responsibilityās Not-So-Independent Leadership
Leftist infiltration of the OBR ? Check out https://order-order.com/2022/10/03/office-for-budget-responsibilitys-not-so-independent-leadership/
The Left Wing Globalists have now stepped in in full Socialist mode to hijack the Conservative Party.
No more freedoms of thought, no more democracy – just WEF style World rule.
October 20, 2022
Net Zero = zero real growth, the rest is just fluff
October 20, 2022
John, when you talk about growth, making the pie or cake bigger, is it private sector money growth?
Or do you count the Ā£1bn per week EXTRA on the NHS by 2024 that we are on track for? “By the 2024ā2025 financial year our yearly expenditure on our NHS is projected to be Ā£57billion higher in cash terms than we spent in 2016ā17, or over Ā£1billion more per week.” You can talk about the value of the Ā£ all you want but shouldn’t this encourage the NHS to buy British? Just how much does the NHS import?
Do you count Green initiatives such as massive investment in sustainable technologies? Can I ask where the money comes from to make that investment? Is it on the never-never like the Ponzi scheme state pension or the HS2 investment?
To me, those projects aren’t proper growth; they are spending and splurging, and just looking at local councils, you can see how bad these ‘investors’ using local council taxes are. I could give lots of examples of them pouring money down the drain, as long as they top up their pay with inflation growth and their guaranteed pensions everything is ok, nothing to see here, move along.
October 20, 2022
What we’ll get is high tax, low growth, grovelling to the EU and NATO and complete adherence to every globalist policy and agenda.
The Conservative party has been taken over and is entirely filled with WEF poodles.
October 20, 2022
Confidence to both UK and non UK investors is essential if investment is to be attracted ; the state of the markets is also an inducement or not . In Thatcher’s early time in office her powerful decisive leadership was also a major influence and investors responded positively . Today we need Thatcher’s form of leadership more than ever ; Truss is wrong and must go . Stability , vision and strong intelligent leadership are now essential if the CP are to progress to the next election and win .
October 20, 2022
We need thresholds on everything to be reset. VAT especially is a dreadful burden to what are in fact tiny businesses. VAT on energy is a killer!
October 20, 2022
It seems to me that Nigel Farage’s analysis is correct. There has been a Remainer coup.
Perhaps our only hope against a Remainer governmment versus a Remainer government is Richard Tice UNLESS the true Conservatives manage to regain the Party.
October 20, 2022
It is becoming ever more likely that benefits will be index linked while workers take pay freezes. In truth wages already are chasing benefits as some of those benefits are provided in tangible terms whatever their cost.
How can a nurse be expected to sit freezing at home while the welfare cheat sits in the warm ?
October 20, 2022
A quote from Twitter:
“My son has lived through four chancellors, three home secretaries, two prime ministers and two monarchs.
He’s four months old”
I suspect there will be a few more changes before the son is five months old.
Growth needs the many things which are commented on elsewhere in this blog, together with efficiency, competence and incentives. It also needs stability and certainty. The divisions in the Conservative Party and the recent U turns of the Truss Government show that stability and certainty are dead. Sadly, I no longer care for the Conservative Party.
October 20, 2022
I see Truss has resigned.
I wonder if the son is still four months old !
October 20, 2022
Lower VAT across the board to 15%.
Tax incentives for high Street businesses paid for by online only businesses.
Government to buy into companies who intend to grow and use some profits from companies to improve and manage state pensions and in-house business employee training.
October 20, 2022
It seems the cost of an extra bank holiday is higher than people thought “25% of businesses said their performance had decreased in Sept 2022 compared with Sept 2021 š The accommodation and food service activities industry reported the highest percentage decrease (47%).”
We are comparing a month where the UK public sector went into mourning for a week! The military were rehearsing for the Queen’s funeral. The ONS doesn’t even mention this in their tweet. It only started to recover from Sept 2022 wk3.
October 20, 2022
Slightly off topic:
But didnāt someone leave a folder containing highly confidential information on a bench, or was it a waste bin, in a London park! I donāt remember them having to resign.
October 20, 2022
Dear Sir John,
You deserve high respect for remaining positive. We may not yet be in recession, but most City forecasts expect a modest drop in GDP next year. As you (and any respectable economic school) say, one should not cut state spending or raise taxes in a recession. That would only amplify the effect of the higher Bank Rate needed to curb ex-gas inflation. Yet here we go again, as in 1981 and 2010-11.
There is not much left of the Truss-Kwarteng growth plan, except higher legal immigration. not a great vote winner. The new Home Secretary’s record of inconsequential action in previous posts will also lower expectations on illegal immigration.
Given the current opinion polls, Sir Keir and his colleagues will have an effective veto on new longer-term projects. That means no fracking but perhaps also no Investment Zones.
New state-backed growth points will therefore need to be bipartisan, such as upgrading local power and telecoms grids and High Streets, or sufficiently popular to oblige Labour to accept them. should it come into office at the next election.
October 20, 2022
It seems to be pretty clear what the budget will bring.
We cannot trust those in power to do anything but raise every possible tax, to make energy and general life beyond our reach – Already Fracking has been killed off.
Enough clues have been left by the establishment figures – they will reduce populations and they will make life hell, but not for themselves.
October 20, 2022
I regret to say that the Prime Minister has now got herself into a completely irrecoverable position.
Clearly, Hunt and his backers are determined to bring back open immigration to promote growth and the Home Secretary could not live with that.
The position now is that the party can afford no more resignations. Everything depends on the approval of the markets and that plays into the Sunak camp. At least he was a Brexiteer.
It would be better if Graham Brady acted swiftly, ideally today.
The focus has to be on the best person to have a chance of winning an election in two years time and that, IMHO, has to be Sunak. It has the added advantage that no change of Chancellor will be necessary and that will help the markets.
It is absolutely crucial that every conservative MP rallies around and supports his appointment because another leadership campaign is unthinkable. Neither is there is there any room for sniping from the back benches or dissent of any kind once a change has been made.
Make no mistake, this is the very last chance of avoiding the nightmare that would be a Labour/LibDim/SNP government.
October 20, 2022
Has Sunak been on manoeuvres behind the scenes (silent and at a safe distance, with his band of supporters doing the dirty work) for weeks since he lost his chance.
Is he really to be trusted ?
Rather too many co-incidences for my liking
October 20, 2022
āIt [this Government] has to demonstrate that there is a growth strategy, and show how decisions will be made to limit the downturn and point the economy to a better futureā
The Government is completely committed to Net Zero, a strategy specifically designed to curb growth and living standards.
De-industrialisation is the aim through expensive and intermittent energy coupled with mass immigration of cheap labour from wherever it can be found, such as pretending it is necessary to achieve a “trade deal”.
October 20, 2022
āThe government has placed itself at the mercy of OBR forecasts.ā
This is intentional. It also deliberately places itself at the mercy of the far left BBC, quangos, institutions, pressure groups and āindependentā think tanks as evidenced by the fact that it even funds the organisations taking it to court over its pretend Rwanda plans.
This gives the Government the excuses it wants to not implement its manifesto pledges.
October 20, 2022
āSeveral important oil and gas field developments are missing at a time when we need to swell the domestic production of fuels. This would boost revenues at home and cut carbon dioxide from transporting and liquifying imports.ā
There is no need to curb CO2 emissions. CO2 is plant food and in fact we need to increase our historically low atmospheric CO2 to increase food production. Average global temperature does not follow CO2 levels as evidenced by 500 million years of data since the start of the Cambrian explosion, the Antarctic Vostok and Greenland ice core data.
So low has CO2 been over the last 800,000 years that we came close to extinction 9 times as the level dropped to 180 ppm, just 30 ppm above the minimum below which plants cannot survive.
Average global temperature, according to UAH satellite data is increasing at 1.3 degrees C per century and there is no scientific evidence as to why 4 molecules of CO2 per 10,000 in the atmosphere, instead of only 3, should be causing climate breakdown.
October 20, 2022
āThey should add small modular nuclear reactors to the list where pump priming state investment could lead to a major new manufacturing activity to be privately financed with opportunity for exports.ā
There is no plan at all for a major use of nuclear energy, let alone the development of SMR technology.
The National Gridās Future Energy Scenarios for 2050 only include between 5% and 8% nuclear energy.
The major sources of energy are to be wind turbines and solar panels, supplied by (coal-fired) China, providing expensive and intermittent energy with no provision for long-term back-up.
October 20, 2022
āYour ideas would be of interest as to what a good Growth strategy should look like.ā
Impossible without ditching the Net Zero Strategy unless āgrowthā is simply to mean increased GDP through massive immigration and not GDP/capita.
October 20, 2022
Donāt forget to include in the budget the ever increasing cost of putting up illegal immigrants in hotels and providing them with enhanced access to the NHS. Can I have some pocket money too?
October 20, 2022
Running at Ā£10 million a day ā¦.and what of the cost to our security, culture & society of the undocumented illegal immigration
October 20, 2022
The Biden administration just announced $2.8bn funding for US battery manufacture and critical materials production. Meanwhile here the FT reports that Britishvolt is seeking emergency funding to avoid a pre-Christmas collapse.
October 20, 2022
Its not ‘funding’ – its taxpayer subsidy
October 20, 2022
Battery manufacture needs large amounts of cheap, on demand, fossil fuel energy! Cost effective labour & materials low simple taxes. So the UK is certainly not the best place to do it.
October 20, 2022
Am afraid what we have is money going round and round – we have to accept that the basics for growth are not in place and it does not matter how much we talk it up it will remain the same – ’round and round’
October 20, 2022
Looks like they don’t have a growth strategy but an appearance of growth strategy.
October 20, 2022
The press of the nations of Europe are now saying with once voice what anyone with any sense here has been saying about the Tories and their brexit delusions for years.
Read it, and at least say with a satisfied sigh “at last”, from Le Monde to Allgemeine Zeitung to Corriere della Sera to El Pais to name but four.
October 20, 2022
The voters voted wanted to leave the EU NHL
The Conservative MPs not so much.
October 20, 2022
Peter2 and the conservative MPs that rode on Borisā coat tails saying they were respecting the Brexit vote in 2019 knowing his platform should have been more trustworthy to the people that elected them. Some holding their noses and voting Tory for the first time.
It wasnāt just the one vote the UK had, NLH seems to forget there was a wipeout of MEPs on PR at the next set of European elections. Then the Lib Dems stood on a ticket to pull us straight back into the EU donāt pass go and got obliterated. They refused to get the message and they still are!
May and Robbins harmed us with their stitch up agreement yet they walk away with the rewards and gongs.
October 20, 2022
since June 2016 and up until the end of the second quarter of 2022, OECD data shows that the cumulative growth rate of real GDP in Italy was 4%, in Germany was 5.5%, in the U.K. was 6.8% and in France was 7.6%.
Not a great reason for any MSM Schadenfreude in the EU (though newspapers do often draw attention away from their own national crises in that way). Certainly not a reason for the UK to rejoin (or as the Sunak/Hunt wing of the Tories seems determined to do, slavishly copy) the Keynesian errors of that sclerotic, protectionist disunion.
October 20, 2022
The press of the European nations wants our money back, paying in and keeping our mouths shut as usual. Taking the instructions such as equalising and increasing the retirement ages thanks to Blair immediately whilst the rest like France prevaracate and get away with it even though their pension black hole is bigger.
The EU payments are dropping, they’re all in a big puddle of mess. We aren’t allowed to crawl out of it alone.
“Page 24 Consolidated revenue ā main developments in 2021 In 2021, the consolidated revenue, comprising all revenue categories, amounted to EUR 178.9 billion, compared to EUR 224.0 billion the previous year. The main reason for the decrease of EUR 45.1 billion or 20.1% was the decreasing impact of the UKās withdrawal from the European Union, which had increased the 2020 revenues by EUR 47.5 billion, but contributed only EUR 1.1 billion to the 2021 revenues. “
October 20, 2022
What’s that NLH? Are they saying how well the EU is doing currently? Are they telling us how the EBC is going to manage the disparate needs of the 19 Euro Members without damaging some of them? Are they telling us that the EU’s share of global trade isn’t shrinking rapidly? Are they telling us that the EU is immune from the global recession that is happening? Are they saying that the Euro isn’t falling against the Dollar?
It’s easy to crow about our troubles (which are not connected to Brexit btw) but manage to completely overlook the many problems that the EU also has. All is not well in the corridors of Brussles either and I’m sure eventually they will have their own ‘LDI’ pension crisis or something very similar linked to excessive debt. The Euro is another accident waiting to happen I’m afraid – so you need to be very careful what you wish for in that direction.
October 20, 2022
There you have it; the woke, EU facing & left leaning Tory parliamentary party MPs reign supreme ā¦.weāll probably be back in the EU within the year
The Conservative & Unionist Party no longer exists
October 20, 2022
One of the underlying reasons why Suella Braverman resigned is that Truss and Hunt seem determined to carry on with high immigration, partly because it leads to the OBR upgrading future GDP prospects.
This is of course a ‘growth’ that does no good at all to GDP per head – the existing ‘heads’ within the country (its indigenous residents) pay for it dearly and become poorer as a result.
The other false argument is that immigrants are needed to harvest crops that otherwise (pause for rhetorical flourish of hankerchief to stem the weeping tear) the food will ‘rot in the ground’ because of the lack of automation.
The obvious corrollary – the urgent and imperative need for investment in agri-automation – does not seem to have filtered through to the cosy metro-mindset that rather likes immigration because au pairs and cleaners for the upper middles then become readily available, as does male building labour to assist with the semipiternal doing-up of houses that the property market obsession makes such a uniquely British feature of daily life.
October 20, 2022
I think Boris Johnson is the only Tory MP who can lead the Tories out of current chaos – and possibly win next general election.
Who else is there? This isn’t just about policy now but about someone with the personal touch who can endear people back to the Tory Party.
October 20, 2022
Boris is on a par with unicorns! He lives in fantasy land!
October 20, 2022
Heās also been on holiday island since his enforced departure ā¦.I wonder how many constituent meeting heās attended in the past year
October 20, 2022
I think he’s busy in his barn stacking his hay at Ā£130K a night. He’s also got a book (or three) to write (or return the handsome advance). Interesting on Dewbs & Co tonight (in Deal) that the audience didn’t really seem that keen on his return. So I wouldn’t bet on the old Boris ‘charm’ to pull the Tory chestnuts out of the fire anymore. That time has passed.
October 20, 2022
We voted in 2016 and again in 2019 to get Brexit after years of being taken for fools by the left leaning EU with their misguided reliance on cheap Russian energy whilst ignoring Putin and China’s growing menace.
Sadly both Labour and Conservative MPs have been in denial of the democratic vote just like SNP denial of the Scottish referendum.
We cannot rely on most MPs to carry out the voters wishes and they are ill equipped with the basic professional skills to govern.
We are overdue some radical urgent reform of the system. Lord Frost had some wise words directing the PM in August on stepping stones but like SJR s advice too was poorly implemented or ignored.
Sad now she has belated taken his latest advice to go.
If Starmer thinks he is the answer to everything we are in even more trouble.
October 20, 2022
So, Liz has resigned, driven out of office by the plonkers in her own party.
Clearly time for that party to be driven out of office also – and the sooner the better.
October 20, 2022
Agreed. I doubt the country can survive another 2 years of this corrupt party. I suspect it will end in violence if they stay! People are VERY angry!
October 20, 2022
5th PM in 6 or so years, the last 4 of whom got the job without the inconvenience of a general election. Anyone who thinks that the UK’s electoral system is better than using PR voting because it produces “strong and stable governments” has clearly been either unconscious or on another planet for the last 5 years or so.
A plague on all your houses.
October 20, 2022
Sir John, they say it has to get worse before it can get better.
There are said to be 357 Conservative MPās. Surely there is one in that mix that isnāt tainted with the Boris Johnson shambles of spend, spend spend but above all donāt create the framework to pay the debt.
As I have said before those that have been in Cabinet since the last election all agreed as part of the Cabinet collective to creating the situation the UK now finds itself in today. So they should stand aside as we donāt need and cannot afford more of the same. Some call it experience, the rest of us see them for what they are.
Orthodoxy as part of the left wing Globalists that now sit at the top table of Government, just haven’t a clue. Likewise as pointed out on the Order Order(Guido) website today even the OBR appointees are not independent but basically a left wing think tank friends. To me they demonstrate that it is a game, and by their actions to date to have destruction in mind.
Then there are the āMachiavellianā extremes in the Party, they will tear anyone down regardless.
The majority of Parliament and its Civil Service has never accepted the UK should become an Independent Sovereign Democracy ā they prefer it were the unelected, unaccountable and undemocratic rulers run the Country for them
Oh, Boy, Sir John were has the Conservative Party gone?
October 20, 2022
We don’t want any previous candidates standing
for PM. We just want someone who will do their best for people and country.
October 20, 2022
Breaking News
Liz Truss resigns
Who will the WEF choose?
October 20, 2022
So yellow dress did know !
October 20, 2022
What a farce! The EU/IMF/Democrats/remainiacs carry out a coup using their “tools”, and we all have to go on pretending we are still living in a democracy. Now we are being presented with yet another contest which will be overthrown if it does not produce the right result.
All that matters is that we don’t prosper on our own as an inependent sovereign nation; that we are made a dreadful example of what happens if a country tries to go it alone, as a warning to countries like Italy and France. It is back to puppet chancellors now, ensuring we stay a high tax, high regulation, high immigration but low wage, low growth, low education country as Gordon Brown’s Treasury and Bank ordain.
October 20, 2022
The Whitehall farce continues. The Tory Party is the gift that keeps on giving. There is an advert on the box that shows the door of No. 10 as a revolving door! Many a true word!
October 20, 2022
How conceited; all Iāve been hearing all day, by Tory MPs, is how the members got it wrong ! ā¦.Tory MPs have lost there way, believing that theyāre the new globalist elite, presiding over us, and I understand the coup is almost complete with the return of Boris ā¦how conceited
October 20, 2022
Off topic, but the PM’s resignation opens yet another can of worms. I’ll be disappointed if Party Members vote in Sunak. Just because the MSM are clamouring for someone doesn’t mean they are the right person for the country and, ultimately, the Party.
October 20, 2022
I think you have a rather larger problem than worrying about a budget.
October 20, 2022
The Chief Scientific Advisor to Defra is a Professor of Earth Sciences who is a “geochemist researching climate change and the carbon cycle”. Farming and Fishing should be transferred to the Business Department without any of the civil servants unless they have expertise in producing food from our enormous Exclusive Economic Zone. The Business Department can then weigh the consequences of filling the environment with windmills and solar panels with their deleterious impact on food production. It must be given growth targets for both Farming and Fisheries production and negative growth targets for food importation.
Fishing in particular has been heavily deprecated by successive governments and that needs to end with massive increases in fisheries in our EXCLUSIVE Economic Zone. The process of progressively constraining fisheries activity and then claiming its not important to our GNP must end. Stop listening to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and to professors and start listening to the people who actually know how to grow food and catch fish: they know where its at.
Furthermore, why are their two government departments obsessing about CO2? Two too many.
October 20, 2022
The party doesnāt need a new leader, thatās just repeating the same exercise expecting a different result ā¦what the party needs is a genuine reformation, a set of principals, a marker on where the party stands in the political spectrum and a set of beliefs
I donāt want a broad-church of views, left right or centre, I want all Tory MPs to be the same, singing from the same hymn sheet and the hymn sheet set by its members
October 20, 2022
Talking about the budget, how much will Trussās pension be? How much will protection for the rest of her life cost us? Will she stay as an MP? Will she be in the next cabinet? Will she be an outspoken critic of the next PM who, presumably, will raise taxes even higher than the current āhighest for 70 yearsā – and do as āthe marketsā, the media (and, in particular, the BBC) tell them?
What a farce it all is.
October 20, 2022
I think it’s worth making the point that- during and following the ‘austerity’ policies of Osborne’s tenure, there appears to be something of a consensus that ‘efficiency savings’ were a fiction and that cuts to spending equated to cuts to service delivery. Having worked as a CS since 2009, it has not been my experience that any serious attempts have been made during that period to address inefficiency- certainly not in my corner of it. By ‘inefficiency’, I mean activities (and by implication resources) that are allowed to continue despite not particularly contributing to the delivery of the department/agency’s core function. I am fed up with a constant stream of corporate internal comms for example, most of which I don’t need to know, and which seems to exist purely to keep the comms people occupied. I really don’t care if it’s ‘mental health week’ or (looking at my screen right now) ‘World menopause day’. Questionable uses of resources are numerous and hard to root out. Inefficient processes are another issue, and often stem from a preference for the gold-plated over the ‘good enough’. I suggest therefore that the only way to reform public bodies is to disregard the existing structures and redesign from first principles. Only when government is prepared to undertake the monumental effort of a full redesign will there be any prospect of doing ‘more with less’, which we really need to do if we’re going to both balance the books and maintain living standards and service provision. Since I am proposing a monumental effort it implies a significant upfront cost, which in turn implies a need for caution when pondering spending cuts in the short term.
October 20, 2022
Liz Truss might have bowed to the inevitable but I would certainly not write off the Conservatives to form the next government in 2024.
The economy is in nothing like as bad a state as the media are portraying : Borrowing is lower than in many other leading countries including the USA. ( Four of the G7 countries have higher borrowing than the UK). Our inflation rate is lower than the Eurozone and 19 of 28 other individual countries across Europe, including Poland, Germany, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands.
If a new leader can stabilise the political situation and there is proper discipline across the party, (which has not existed since Boris Johnson became leader), there is everything to play for.
Labour has a bigger hole in their finance plans than Liz Truss had, and many of their left wing backbenchers do not share the veneer of respectability demonstrated by Starmer.
The polls will undoubtedly close up when Labour’s programme is subject to proper examination and it will look impossible for Labour to win without a coalition with the SNP and the Lib Dims. English voters will not support that, as the happless Ed Miliband discovered.
October 20, 2022
It’s getting like I’m A Politician Get Me Out of Here.
What next, a public vote, 25p, money raised to be spent on choose:
a) veteran charities
b) food banks
c) pay off the national debt
October 20, 2022
I do hope Boris will stand. It was madness to force him out.
October 20, 2022
Much as I supported Boris on the big decisions, which he got overwhelmingly right, his flawed character means he has far too much negative baggage around him.
We need a solid candidate who the opposition and media cannot immediately trash and all MPs must coalesce around.
Wallace or Sunak with Hunt remaining as Chancellor.
October 20, 2022
No “flawed character” and he has paid a fine and served a period in the sin-bin. He is fully entitled to come back. He is the Cincinnatus of Uxbridge! He also has a mandate from the British public, which refutes any calls for a general election.
October 21, 2022
“We need a solid candidate who the opposition and media cannot immediately trash and all MPs must coalesce around.”
It is important to understand, from years of experience, that the media only trash people they regard as a threat. In other words, if the candidate is any good, the media will trash them. If they aren’t any good, the media will more or less leave them alone. Is that the sort of leader you want? One that the media leave alone? They left Mrs May alone.
October 20, 2022
Thank goodness Truss has decided to go . A united CP is now essential to establish stability and re-win the confidence of the public .
October 20, 2022
In our Dreams!!
October 20, 2022
Liz Truss looked relieved. She should have stayed though . Go on John have a go. Doesn’t matter if you dont get there : you nearly got there last time!
October 20, 2022
+1 Agree
October 20, 2022
You would condemn our respected host to that den of rabid, fighting cockrels who would try to tear him apart daily. No – I’d rather listen to his point of view from the safety of the written word, stay away from the bear pit Sir John.
October 20, 2022
You wonāt stimulate growth with the rules in IR35 working against small businesses. Likewise hiking Corporation tax will dissuade bigger businesses from expanding or setting up here in the first place. We must encourage, develop and train more of our own bright youngsters to go into high value, high paid work like aerospace, banking, insurance, auditing, accounting, pharmaceuticals, satellite technology, IT, AI, etc not all try to be vloggers, pop stars or TV personalities.
October 20, 2022
https://www.conservatives.com/our-plan
Failed, failed, failed,failed, failed.
October 20, 2022
Death Wish if you re-elect Boris (who’s ahead in the Tory MPs polls tonights)
October 21, 2022
I hope it is not thought I am trying to curry favour by saying this – I have thought it for years.
The only PM I could envisage at present to cope with this crisis is Sir John Redwood. Ably assisted by a team of savvy comms experts.
October 21, 2022
Well I am not currying favour, Mancunius, and I heartily agree; have done for years.